Does meditation actually work...

Ignore the bullshit replies ITT, I have meditated for years and will tell it to you straight.
Yes, it is effective. It is EXTREMELY effective at shutting down chaotic thoughts, self deprication and anxiety. It is like an atom bomb exploding in your heart and soul but which leaves only love and stillness as the nuclear fallout. Your empathy blossoms and you can be content with little stimulation. How it achieves this is unclear, but you are making as space for yourself where you listen to HOW YOU FEEL without judgment and with no sensorship. It grounds you in the present moment, not in the shitty past that you can't seem to let go off and not in your vague future that causes you concern and anxiety. In the present moment you breathe, relax and accept yourself. Accepting your own nature is one of the hardest things you can do in life. Think benching 3plate is hard? Think again. It doesnt happen immediately in your first session, but over time as you get in the habit of meditation. I can't really tell just how effective it will be for you, but scientific studies report that it is more effective than the best drugs at culling anxiety and worry. Be aware that people who tried meditating 2-3 times and didn't feel that they got anywhere will tell you its placebo or bullshit. It's not. Realize that 4channers can barely stop themselves from fapping 5 times per day to weabo/tranny shit, so most will struggle to look inwards. Meditating leads to actual physical changes in the matter composition in your brain, look it up in pubmed and elsewhere. Please, just give it a chance, 30 mins 3x per week. Try it for at least a month. It can change your life.

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I used to have anger issues, meditation helped a lot

Learning to cancel outside noise is the first step, but you eventually learn to cancel inside noise as well - I'm better at telling when an emotion or a single thought is taking over, I can more clearly see my decision making so I'm better at noticing when it's flawed, by seeing the way by which my mind tries to keep me off the state of meditation I better understand the way by which I get distracted in my daily life

it helped me know the way my mind works better, worth it if only for that - but there's the added chill and calm

You know what fills me with love and serenity? Love. Who needs meditation when you can just hug her.

Books.
misc.equanimity.info/downloads/mindfulness_in_plain_english.pdf
longbeachmonastery.org/the_chan_handbook.pdf

meditation stressed me the fuck out.

I tried it at a point in life where i worked way too much.

Just adding two times 10 minutes in the start and end of my day was just enough to send me over the edge and made me lash out at a few car's and destroy their windows and lights.

As a result i lost my job, my wife and children left me, and i started using heroine.

Meditation ruined my life.
Do, never, start.

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that's external and may change at anytime. This internal and is under your control. It's a different kind of love, not being dependent on someone else. And the benfits are numerous.

yeah, you get insight into your decision making processes, you realize that at any point you have a choice how you react or respond. You are no longer a reacting monkey but a conscious being.

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I think you did it wrong bro.

Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind

no, i was promissed unlimited power after 2 years of meditating and i can barely spit fireballs. My limbs don't stretch either, at least levitating is going fine

if you mean giving your mind a clean slate from mental chatter yeah it works

you're not going to become the avatar or anything though

>I'm self made
t. trust fund kid who got a lambo as their first car

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What the fuck does a bitch in panties and a choker have to do with meditating

I'm trying the "focus on breathing" but feels like going nowhere. If i "contemplate" my breathing i start to breath manually which defeats the purpose, right?
Visualization on an ideal relaxed place (i.e empty beach, mountains, etc) also doesn't help to focus on "nothing".
What else could i do?

"Look" into space, focus on the space between the stars. Zoom in on that black void. Still see stars? Keep zooming.

Meditation is gay

YOU'RE gay

It's fucking good for sleeping. Improves quality of your sleep and only takes like 5 minutes.

Right now I'm using Headspace to help me meditate, it's a really good app and partially free. Whatever you do, I recommend you to use guided meditation rather than do it by yourself.

Meditation is very helpful for general being, consciousness, thought, etc. There are many forms of meditation: prayer, contemplation (in terms of Greek Philosophy), etc. When Western peoples talk about meditation though, they're typically referring to a secularized form of Vipassana, which is traditionally a small component of Eastern religion/philosophy.

So, does Vipassana "work"? Personally, I don't think I am enlightened enough in terms of Eastern philosophy to fully understand it and know if it's "working" for me. Contemplation, and to a lesser extent prayer, have served me well enough, and have served many others in my own culture for centuries - long before the popularization of secular Vipassana meditation. Maybe it can work for Western peoples, but to me, it seems more like a form of escapism; escape from your own traditional cultural legacy and values, an escape from what your own culture has to offer you, from what has worked for a long time.

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It's no coincidence that this Eastern form of meditation finds its genesis in the West during a time of radical social change (or rather, vain and vulgar escapism) - during the 60's, when traditional values (particularly religious values) were outright rejected.

Of course, when you reject the traditional values and way of life, you're left with a void; a void that needs to filled. What then do you fill it with? What becomes your mode of being? Your mode of operating? What guides your life now? Instead of seeking for the answer further inward, the individual escapes and searches the external. The individual now turns to things that they don't fully understand in order to rebirth their old identity that they've shed - Eastern mysticism, yoga, meditation, etc. They bask in these superficial components of Eastern religion and philosophy, not daring to go deeper, because, at least subconsciously, they fear they'll encounter the same sort of second-guessing that they faced in confronting their own original traditional culture and values.

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It's like any other exercise in that it takes practice to build the skill. I had to do 30min/day for about a month before it clicked. Now I do 5-10 minutes a few times a week for the benefit.

So, does meditation work? Yes. Is secular Vipassana meditation superior to the forms passed down to you from the ancient roots of your own culture and civilization? I don't think so. You're already living in the most prosperous and successful part of the world. I encourage you to go down deep into your own roots and find your answer to the efficacy of meditation there. This means the sort of contemplation as employed by the Greeks, Plato in particular.

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Yes it works. Long term proper use of meditation, along with whatever spiritual benefits you're looking for, reduces activity in your sympathetic nervous system, which is what causes anxiety problems.

It helps to activate the parasympathetic nervous system, which is what keeps you calmer. Other things that do this you're probably already familiar with, such as going into nature, getting enough sleep, avoiding stimulants like caffeine, etc.

Sounds like you need to stop worrying so much about what you're doing. Just tell yourself you're gonna let yourself sit still with your eyes closed for the next 15 minutes. Eventually calm will come, and like any skill the more you practice it the more you will find it easy to hone in on the serene. Stop expecting so much, good look friend.

So ultimately would be focused on think about nothing for x amount of time?
If you get intrusive thought, do you have to reset the timer? I guess i now managed to stop blaming myself for those and let them go, but they keep coming

Serious question, what am I trying to achieve through meditation? When people say it works, what do that mean?

I mean, if it's just to "feel good" a bj from my gf sorts that out no problem.

(((Sam Harris)))

>Yes goyim, reject your ancestral religion and listen to me!

I'm still trying to figure it out by myself, but i guess, among other things:
suppress the noise in your head caused by other thoughts, anxiety, depression, etc
have a moment just for yourself, to meet and observe your real self, without judgement
eventually make peace with yourself and remove the fog other thought/situation put on your day to day to better address/understand your now

The first book put everything in a pretty realistic perspective for me, I recommend it even though it drags a little bit near the end

What you try to achieve through meditation is calm in your self. The calm that exist right now, in you. When you are able to find that calm in you that exist at all times, you can always be calm. It is overcoming the body, and mind. When you overcome the body, and mind you are both of, and above them. It is not as much an achievement, because nothing actually changes except for the perspective I guess. But really perspective is the ground of everything, right? So I am stand corrected. The meditation doesn't end when you get up, you should keep the mind you had. The mind you should should be one pointed, and composed. Every moment is empty, or the following of a direction, and distractions are seen but we shouldn't attach to them. I should say that I hate meditating, but I do actually enjoy when I do it.

>Thinking about doing things.
>Doing things.
I wonder which is more effective.

The asana is all over the place. She prolly broken out pf that sit after 2s.

You start feeling more calm, in the moment, and in control of your emotions

The reason meditation, yoga and eastern mysticism rose in the 60s was due to the invention and sudden mass consumption of LSD.

This user is correct.
I have meditated for years and have studied Ascension meditation with the Ishaya monks for six months. It is absolutely legit and the rewards have blown me away, transforming my life completely in ways that I had never dreamed possible.

>have to do this shit for years
>it only reduces anxiety and other mental shit that you could just take pills for

It's all so tiresome.

>Does meditation actually work?
yes.

you don't need guidance. be your own guru and not a weak faggot.

just close your eyes and breathe.

Being non judgmental about your inability to focus is a big hurdle for many. You can NEVER shut off thoughts coming in. When you catch yourself lost in thought just bring your attention back to breathing or whatever you focus on. For instance you can focus on music some sound or whatever the fuck. Thats the whole point bringing your attention back over and over again.

>you could just take pills
Yes, YES, good. Take SSRIs they will help you and totally not fuck your shit up for good!

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I meditate in between my sets

>day 1 of nofap
>can't stop staring at her feet

help me /b/ros

Control of your focus is the whole exercise. Every time you notice your focus wonders, and you notice, that's a good thing. At that moment, you can bring your focus back to breathing. The more you do this, the easier it gets to control your awareness.

You focus on the feeling of breath going in and out: You train your focus. You notice your mind and focus has wondered away: you train your awareness. You bring your focus back to breath, without judging yourself or the thoughts your mind wondered to: you train your emotional control.

The easiest way for me to train is focusing on when feelings and stimuli are "gone". When the feeling of air being sucked in trough my nose stops, I note it in my mind with "gone". When my exhale stops, I try to focus on the exact moment I cannot feel the air escaping between my lips anymore, and note that again with "gone". The same exercise works with pain, discomfort, sadness... At some point, all will pass, and by noticing it, you can train your meditation.

SSRIs kill boners, libido, workouts, reasons to live
But are a tool to manage very specific situations. Get off them ASAP

Here's a guide I found that helped me get started. Try 2 minutes a day just before you go to bed. Do the towel and cushion thing it talks about.

Blog: I've been doing it for two weeks now and I've increased my meditation time up to 8 minutes because I don't feel like I'm doing it long enough. I started with 2 minutes twice a day, once when I got up and once when I went to bed, but I petered off and decided to do only before I go to bed to help me unwind and relax before I sleep. It has helped me calm down before bed and I slip into meditation breathing when I'm actually IN bed and fall asleep faster now.

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So it's wanking? Mental wanking?

About the saliva part. It is recommended to bring the tongue to the root of your upper teeth. This way the saliva will naturally drip down the throat without you having to swallow. It is strange and your mouth will have some, but once you get used to it, you won't have any problems.

Some even suggest to roll your tongue up and touching the palate with the back side of the tongue.

5 grams, silent darkness

Meditation is a practice for achieving enlightenment.
You can use it for other means, the same way you can use a grand piano as a kitchen table. Its true purpose remains its highest potential regardless if you use it for lesser means.
Enlightenment is the realisation of what is. The underlying reality of everything. Your true nature.
The truth is found in stillness. Learning to be still, you can observe what moves. Einstein's theory of relativity states that you cannot determine the movement of an object in space if you cannot determine whether or not you are also simultaneously moving. For example, if you are driving a car on a highway at the same speed as the neighboring car, if the distance between cars do not change, it appears as though none of the cars are moving, when in fact all the cars are moving. So it is with the movements of reality: If you cannot discern between the still and the moving parts of your being, you cannot understand clearly the movements of reality. Only by discovering the aspect of your being that is permanently still, and practicing observing all movements from there, can you see reality as it is. And the only aspect of your being that is permanently still is your consciousness: that which is aware of movement. The physical sensations of your body, your emotions, your thoughts all have a beginning and an end. Your conscousness does not. Your consciousness is unchanging, unmoving, perfectly seated in eternal stillness.
Reading about this does not change anything. You have to change your relationship with movement in order to recognize what is still. Therefore no-one can reliably become enlightened through studying literature. Literature is conceptual and relies on thoughts which are temporary. Only the correct practice of meditation can reliably bring enlightenment to the seeker of truth.

>Do I need a guru to wake up?
Eventually even if you achieve enlightenment, there will be a voice in your head that says:
>This is it. This is enlightenment.
At that point, how do you decide whether to acknowledge this as the truth, or to let go of that thought as you would any other thoughts?
Only another enlightened being can reliably verify whether or not what you are experiencing is enlightenment. Without a guru, you risk buying into a dualistic experience and living your entire life believing that you have discovered truth whilst living in ignorance. Therefore it is crucial to find a guru if one truly desires a genuine experience of enlightenment.

"I don't need a teacher, I can manage this myself!" - only the ego would say this.
"I want to wake up. I will accept any help I can get!" - this conviction destroys the ego.

or you could take shrooms and get this insight way easier

Good.
Now meditate whilst lifting.
Good.
Now recognize that presence which remains after movements are gone.
Then recognize the presence of that void in the midst of movement.

meditation and mindfulness are godly. practice both and they'll do more for your mental well being than any drug or medication

It helps you appreciate the moment and be in the present. Don't think that the main goal is to find eternal peace and happiness.

Drugs offer a temporary altered state of consciousness. They offer a glimpse of reality, though contorted by hallucinations.
The likelyhood of drugs causing permanent brain damage in the form of psychosis or schizophrenia is far higher than the likelyhood of drugs causing a permanent state of enlightened consciousness. Everyone I know that has done psychedelic drugs, including myself, fall back into lower states of relative consciousness after tripping. The only RELIABLE and SAFE methodology of establishing a permanent state of enlightened consciousness that is known to humanity, is the correct practice of meditation.

If you were actually in the present moment, appreciating it for what it is, and if you were to actually stay there and not leave the present moment, you would know eternal peace and happiness. The only reason you don't experience eternal peace and happiness is because your attention keeps moving away from the one moment where peace and happiness exists.

Dont listen to this jew

How the fuck can you even stand listening to that cuck

when do you meditate? at mornings your cortisol is high because your body is preparing for daily tasks. after coming home from work your cortisol is high and you need around half an hour to settle down.

Personally I meditate one hour in the morning after my workout.

How?

What the fuck are you trying to learn?
Nigga just stop thinking

you can’t meditate on cycle due to your elevated heart rate, so depends

I've noticed good things from meditation and entering a meditative mind state, but to say it changes your life sounds vague. I guess it's the same as stoicism, you can't alter reality but you can alter your perception of reality, being in meditative state makes it much easier than allowing yourself to be consumed in frustrated emotions.

But as said, actual experiences are more important. You can achieve bliss staring at asphalt because of the content feeling given by meditation, but isn't a more 'real' experience like sharing your mind with the most lovely creature in your life far more touching experience?

I despise monks because of their inaction. If you teach yourself to be content in stillness, how's that different from being dead? Monks don't kill themselves because they're travellers on Earth here to enjoy the little things, but death won't be much different to them, even if conciousness being spared after death is a scam.

Living things are alive because of action, which is prompted by our evolutionary needs, feelings and emotions. From a distant, cold view point those things are ugly and unnecessary since we can be content if we break away from those things.

Isn't an enhanced, 'enlightened' state of mind a bad thing because it separates you from the other living things on earth in a new way, bringing you only solitude and loneliness and illusion of being connected to all life while in reality all you do is sitting alone in an empty room?

I'm playing devil's advocate here, but isn't meditation harmful if we view it this way? I'd appreciate your thoughts or the thoughts of anyone who's into this shit in a 'life changing' way.

Serious question: How do I meditate, at all? What does it even mean? Does it mean quieting the mind and not thinking, does it mean repeating something? How do I start, and how do I know when I'm doing it?

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Sit with legs crossed on the floor with a straight spine, and the back of head pointing up like it’s holding the roof. Relax your eye lids to half mast, and stare at the ground in front of you. And just sit paying attention to the breath. Distraction are okay but you should only focus on the breath. There is no point to this, because when we restrict ourselves to this posture we see the real nature of phenomena.

lul at faggots doing meditation

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See

>not giving in to your anger and going jacked monster Blanka mode

>learning
sit down
close eyes
focus on breath

Heh watch those "gurus" not reply to you.

I always disliked meditation because of the things you mentioned.

Being a passive sitting still person and content with little things is no different than being stoned. Only difference? You don't need weed instead but instead learn to be OK and happy with little to nothing. Seems like a drug that you teach yourself instead of taking external things.

I found action to be the most healing thing you can do, exercixe, learning new things.. ANYTHING but sitting still.

Anyone who meditates to find the meaning of life or whatever is an idiot. But if you actually devote time to meditation, it DOES offer legitimate benefits to improve concentration and reduce anxiety. I thought this thread would delve more into that stuff but it feels like I'm in a college philosophy class instead.

Yes and it can also make you insane btw. Meditation affects your brain wavse.

Nope meditation is known for causing reactions like this.

yeah, and i also tend to want to make better choices too. like instead of instinctively reaching for my phone i instead evaluate what i really should be doing right now to progress my day. at least after i meditate i feel this way.

- Remember to breathe through your belly, that way your lung capacity can be increased.
- Some people use meditation bell apps that ring after a certain period so that your thoughts do not stray a lot. Other people however may find the timing to be stressful, because they will be constantly thinking about when the meditation is going to end. So it is best to find out what works out for you.

It can cause this, but that is because one of the side effects is resurfacing your past and everything you choose to escape from. The goal is to sit still no matter how much nervous you may feel. Your mind will protest like crazy. You will feel intense emotions. Eventually you will overcome and gradually calm down to the point where nothing will phase you.

But to get to this point, you must remain strong and unwavering. It is the same with everything else in life. The weak will give up at the slightest difficulty. Only those who choose to push forward and defy every fear will conquer. It is the reason why there are so many monks, and so little enlightened.

You've convinced me. How do I learn meditation faggot?

IT'S EMPOWERING SHE'S DOING IT FOR HERSELF AND TAKING SLUT BACK YOU FILTHY FITCEL HAVE SEX

This is what I need in my life. I'm absolutely helpless to my negative thoughts, they are relentless and every day theres a new one. It has affected my personal relationships and my self esteem, I feel like putting a gun in my mouth an pull the fucking trigger.

I'll second this guy as a dude who meditated twice a day for 20min each session for about 2 to 3 years. You can become complacent with yourself as the benefits seem to accumulate for some reason. I began to step off the meditation train about the time I got into reading neitszche and got all empowered and whatever. Now a few years later I'm starting back down the meditation road.

The key to understand that meditation is a very effective tool, but a tool nonetheless. Did you know most elderly senior monks dont meditate at all?

I will give you a piece of advice for your very personal meditation journey (that means you have to get off the internet and try for yourself). You can meditate incorrectly and feel great. If you try hard to block out the thoughts you will find yourself feeling super happy, but dumb as a rock. You'll forget shit constantly. Meditation is not about happiness, that's a common byproduct of it but not always. Meditation is about SEEING your thoughts. You want to be self aware without concentrating. You'll understand what that means when you begin to "see" the thoughts form in your mind.

I do recommend meditation with any Jow Forums lifestyle, and you can totally get away with 10min a day in the morning and reap all the benefits. Good luck!

Based user

I recommend Headspace as a decent starting point to guided meditation. It's a paid app but you may be able to find it for free on certain websites.

i absolutely know that feeling and struggle with that and the anxiety of that inner voice never shutting up, i fear its a lifelong condition we have to learn to manage and work around

Used to do meditation in cold shower during time I was stressed as fuck and couldn't properly sleep. Helped me clear head before bedtime and combined with the cold water I slept like a baby. I just focused on the sensation of cold water hitting me and every time I started to run thoughts I pushed them aside and refocused on the water. Put on a 10-15min timer on phone and just stayed there sitting in cold shower eyes closed.

Meditation, specially around Jow Forums, is for people who can't tame their minds at all. It's a tool to become slightly more in union with your inner-self, and a way to tame those voices you let get so strong during the years.

You say you become ''cold and distant'' from everything, and that things get ugly and unnecessary. It's the contrary.

Everything gets more beautiful. Just like the Stoics say; even the foam coming from a boar's mouth can be beautiful if you learn to calmly accept it as part of nature, and learn to see the simple beauty in it's things.

Certainly, you shouldn't aim to become an isolated urban Monk who stays on his home monastery, depriving himself of other experiences. But Meditation takes care of the chaos within, of yourself within, and leaves you space to seek external experiences as well you may have stopped yourself from getting due to a lousy, angry mind.

Being connected to all the life on Earth isn't an illusion, nor just a hippy New Age thing. It's reality. Your body came from uncountable sources, and once it's dead, it'll nourish uncountable more, forevermore. This kind of thought helps the meditative Man set aside petty troubles and realize that he's never truly alone and without purpose.

To resume it, let me just say this;

Hugging a girl that loves you is excellent. It feels you with love and all the good things in the world. But if your inner-self is a mess, this feeling won't last much, just like the relationship, probably. You shouldn't rely on external experiences to be happy, or even worse, other people to be happy, since people change and most of the time can and will disappoint you.

But if you're truly happy with yourself, if you truly find the little things around you beautiful, you'll have the confidence to always go on, since you value the thing you have most precious; You. After that, everything that falls on your lap is a gift. Everything you gain, big or small, is a gift.

Yes. It's easiest when you do it first thing in the morning, before.youve had time to fill your head with a bunch of idiotic attachments and desires. Wake up 30 minutes early, take an ice cold shower and drink a cup of tea, and then just sit somewhere moderately comfy. Close your eyes and focus on the inside of your eyelids without thinking about anything. Center yourself. When you realize you've started to think aboht something, accept that you have to let that thought go, and recenter yourself. If you do it every day, you will find that it becomes easier to relinquish distracting thoughts and the time befote a new unwanted thought appears will become longer. This is an improvement in your ability to concentrate, and literally represents enhanced willpower. As you make concentration gains, it will become easier to avoid procrastination, easier to focus on deep, difficult tasks single-mindedly, and the quality of your thoughts will improve. I find that there exists a constant current of highly superficial, superfluous thoughts at the surface of the mind, and that after even a couple minutes of meditation, these thoughts get skimmed off, and an underlying layer of deeper, more valuable thought is revealed. Presumably, these layers can just be peeled away forever as ones willpower improves, and at some point, one reaches layers of depth of mind wherein all of ones' thoughts are profound and truthful, and maybe there even exists an inner core of perfect tranquility. But for the sake of just not being dragged away by the mealstrom of activity of modern life, one should at least skim the surface slime off the top of ones' consciousness. After 5 just minutes of meditation, I often find myself disgusted by the content of my pre-meditation thoughts. An untidied mind is just a mess of insecurities, desires, trivialities, advertisements, spam. I can't believe so many people go through their lives preoccupied with the sludge these days.

>take an ice cold shower

Oh fuck no. I'm out.

I see your point. I guess it's useful to not get distracted by harmful thoughts, but seeing them from a more objective, different view point? If we use meditation as a tool.

Thank you for your insight, this was the kind of perspective I was looking for. I guess you can combine being content and active if you keep accepting new experiences, or gifts, as you say.

I'll think about it. I recently read Viktor Frankl's Man's Search for Meaning, which made me question the importance of inner peace and being content. In his book he says that inner tension or discord and the 'pull' from outside world is vital for living.

For an average man his lover would be a pulling element, but for a meditative man she'd be one of the many gifts the world gives to him? That might be a controversial thought.

Philosophy is important. Why to do things is always more interesting to me over how to do things.

Cortisol is a hormone that is required to satisfy the daily things we must take care of with our body. So is adrenaline. These hormones “stress us out”. We are dumb and unthinking without these hormones (as shown in knockout mice). We need the tension to do things.

Meditation can be the difference between healthy tension and an overtaxed mind.

Best thread in fit rn